65 percent of consumers worried about their diet are focusing on ‘positive nutrition’ instead of just cutting bad foods out, a report has found.

Consumers said they had taken more active steps to eat and drink more healthily in the last year - particularly when it came to food and drinks that offered specific health benefits such as extra anti-oxidants.

This is good news for growers of ‘superfoods’ such as blueberries, who are set to gain from the trend. By 2011, the report predicted, the ‘functional’ food and drink market will be almost double that of 2001.

“The trend towards positive nutrition is well reflected by the recent popularisation of superfoods, especially in the UK and the US,” said the report’s author Michael Hughes. “The popularisation of superfoods means that many food and drinks now have a ‘healthy-halo’ which significantly influences consumer preferences.”